One Night in Jakarta
Here I am. Jakarta. 32°C, 80% humidity. Talking about stepping out of your comfort zone. After the first 24 hours it is safe to say Jakarta is a bustling city. Skyscrapers next to simple roadside stalls offering a quick bite. The smell of burned gasoline mixes with scents of delicious food. The humming of the heavy traffic blends with the call of the Muezzin. And inbetween 15 colleagues from SAP and Pyxera Global coming together for an exciting 4 weeks for this Social Sabbatical!
Tomorrow is the official kick-off, time to share some insights on why I am here and (what I think) I will be doing.
Why am I here?
The idea of SAP’s Social Sabbatical program is to give employees the chance to bring to live our vision of improving people’s lives beyond SAP’s boarders. We aim to create triple impact: For the client organization and their beneficiaries by working with them on their goals, for ourselves as participants by building intercultural awareness and gaining new experiences, and for SAP as we bring back these new experiences and perspectives as ambassadors to our everyday work.
That’s the theory. Now on to this Social Sabbatical:
As a team of three, we will be working with an NGO called Yayasan Rumah Energi (short YRE; ‘Rumah’ means ‘house’ in Indonesian). They work to provide access to renewable energy, food security, and improving the community’s economy. After our initial call with them, I was (and still am) a bit overwhelmed by the vast number of projects they are running. Despite having only about 30 employees, they seem to engage in just as many projects as we do at SAP. This is of course exaggerated, but their activites nevertheless range from promoting biogas as an alternative energy source, over trading carbon credits and running water preservation efforts, to supporting other social entrepreneurs.
A second look however reveals a fascinating end-to-end value chain, centered around a food-energy-nexus. Energy security is a big topic in rural Indonesia. So is farming. By installing biodigesters to produce biogas from manure and organic waste, farmers can reduce their reliance on other, more costly and environmentally harmful energy sources. At the same time, less waste is led into water streams, thereby improving the water quality. The residuals of the process can be sold as organic fertilizer, opening another income stream for farmers. The carbon credits earned are in turn reinvested as subsidies for the installation of new biodigesters.
How we help
So what in the world do people from SAP do there to help them? And before you ask — no, I don’t have a degree in industrial engineering or chemistry. What I do have is an open mind, experience in project management and planning, and two great colleagues just as passionate as I am to help our host organization. This is where we come in: YRE is seeking advice on strategic planning and how to work more efficiently, and I am sure we can bring in our experience and knowledge to help them.
This is not to say that this endeavor is an easy one. We are new to the country, their way of working, the industry. Sometimes I wonder whether I will be able to help them at all. But I am convinced an outside-in perspective is always valuable, and we will do our best to put our efforts where it creates the most value for them.
The closer we get to working with the client, the more I realize how helpful our 6-week preparation program will be. For those of you who read my previous blog post, you remember that some of my fundamental learnings during our preparation where to listen first, be aware of your biases, and communicate openly. These traits will come in handy as we engage with YRE to help them with their most pressing challenges.
Outlook
Next time I plan to share more insights from the first week of the project, the team and our challenges; and of course of Jakarta! Stay tuned & Terima Kasih (Thank you) for taking a few minutes out of your busy day to read this 😊
Stay curious! It’s too boring to stick to what you already know ;)
